Ingram renews online networking deal

Ingram Micro has renewed its global agreement with web conferencing applications provider WebEx for its reseller demonstrations, staff training and monthly marketing meetings.

US-based WebEx Communications said the renewal would let it keep providing its suite of meeting and collaboration applications to global IT distribution giant Ingram Micro, which is also headquartered in the US.

Terms of the renewal were not disclosed.

The distributor began using WebEx meetings for reseller demonstrations, training and asynchronous content delivery two years ago. Since then, online delivery of reseller communications and employee training had steadily increased, WebEx said.

Bruce Erenkrantz, vice-president of assessment and development at Ingram Micro in the US, said WebEx's Training Center was used in the company's human resources department for new policy training, management training and enterprise-application training.

"Ingram Micro has found WebEx services easy to implement and use. Competing online meeting-application providers did not offer nearly the number of features and support that WebEx does," Erenkrantz said in a statement.

Ingram Micro executives, customer groups, sales teams and marketing staff also used WebEx functionality, the company said.

WebEx had helped prepare the company and its partners for expected effects of the US CAN-SPAM law, hosting monthly marketing meetings with customers, internal group meetings for field sales representatives and delivering "dozens" of online training modules, the company said.

WebEx manages a global network over which it delivers a suite of on-demand web meeting applications including applications for web conferencing, online sales calls, web-based support, remote training and online events.

Jeff Schmidt, vice-president of worldwide sales at WebEx, said WebEx staff worked directly with Ingram Micro to help them learn to use the suite.

"Traditionally, new applications are thrown over the wall into organisations," Schmidt said.

WebEx said its applications were built on the MediaTone switching platform and delivered through the WebEx MediaTone Network, which the company claims is the only global network specifically designed for real-time collaboration.